On Sept. 24, the state of Missouri carried out the execution of Marcellus Williams, a Black man who was convicted in 2001 of killing a former newspaper reporter Felicia Gayle. This act set off the latest controversy surrounding the death penalty, as the victim’s family had supported life in prison, evidence emerged of racial bias in jury selection during the trial and contaminated DNA on the murder weapon clouded whether or not Williams had wielded it. While Williams’ attorneys filed several appeals, Missouri Gov. Jim Parsons and the U.S Supreme Court refused to grant a last-minute stay of execution. The issue of potential innocence in Williams’ case points to just one part of the death penalty’s ultimate reality: it is thoroughly immoral and ineffective, and it’s past time to outlaw the practice throughout America.
In known history, capital punishment was first laid out in the Code of Hammurabi, a set of laws named after the King of Babylon in 18th-century BC. This code is famous for the expression “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” meaning an offense must be punished with that same offense. The death penalty is the idea of retribution as justice: the offender is killed for a crime, typically the murder of one or more people. Although throughout history and in some countries today, capital punishment has been extended to crimes that do not reach the height of murder, the modern death penalty in the U.S almost exclusively concerns the death of the victim or victims. This flawed concept of justice, however, does not indicate that the death penalty is humane or just. According to Amnesty International, an organization which fights to abolish capital punishment, the death penalty violates the right to life and the right to live free from torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. These rights, meant to apply to all human beings, were established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a proclamation made by the United Nations in 1948, of which the U.S is a prominent member state. Though criminals on death row have transgressed on those rights for others, that does not mean they deserve to lose them. A right, unlike a privilege, cannot be taken away. Beyond their convictions, those facing the death penalty are still members of the human race.
Capital punishment obviously ends a person’s life, but it also causes undue suffering. The state of Alabama recently authorized the method of nitrogen hypoxia as a means of execution, which administers nitrogen gas through a mask that is supposed to prevent oxygen from coming in. On Jan. 26 of this year, Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first person to be executed in this way. Though the state had promised Smith would be unconsciousness within seconds, the execution took 22 minutes and he appeared to be conscious for a significant period of time. Smith’s spiritual advisor Jeff Hood, who was closest to him during the proceedings, wrote that “Kenny’s face jerked toward the front of the mask…I could see the horror in his eyes.” The nature of this method demonstrates that Smith underwent an ordeal akin to torture and government-sanctioned suffering. The other method for execution authorized in the U.S, lethal injection, is little better, with a history of botched attempts. In fact, Alabama had previously tried to execute Smith in 2022 with lethal injection, but the procedure was called off after an IV line could not be connected.
The issue of human rights is only amplified by the potential for innocence inherent in many executions; according to the Death Penalty Information Center, 200 people have been exonerated after spending time on death row. We must acknowledge that a significant portion of the 1,601 men and women executed in the U.S after the death penalty’s reinstatement in 1976 were probably innocent. In a matter so delicate as life and death, carrying out an execution when there is even a question of innocence is far from just.
Due to grave humanitarian concerns, we are left to wonder what benefits the death penalty brings besides a warped view of “justice.” There is no conclusive evidence to suggest that capital punishment deters crime, as outlined in a study by the University of Texas at Dallas. In addition, the death penalty costs far more than life imprisonment would; according to Equal Justice USA, more than a dozen states have found that executions are up to 10 times more expensive than comparable cases in which the death penalty was not handed down. The cost is exacerbated by the litany of procedures each death penalty case must go through, such as a separate sentencing trial; even in scenarios where capital punishment is ultimately not handed down, taxpayers end up paying the cost.
The finality of execution means that there would have to be something beneficial about the practice to justify it. Given that capital punishment is neither practically effective nor humane, it’s time for the U.S to ban the death penalty permanently.